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Hero and Villain: Don Bosco As Seen in the Press of His Times

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Hero and Villain: Don Bosco As Seen in the Press of His Times Hero and Villain: Don Bosco as Seen in the Press of His Times Michael Ribotta, SOB Piedmont and Early Press Censorship One spring day in 1860 Don Bosco was startled by a newsvendor's cry. "Read all about it! Don Bosco in jail!" He was both amused and bemused. Several of the passersby who also heard the newsboy's shouts and who recognized Don Bosco in the street, stopped short. The papers were selling briskly. Never one to be ruffled, he sent his walking companion, John Guarino, to buy two copies of La Perseveranza to learn who had so summarily incarcerated him. The paper had somehow learned of a house search that had just been conducted at the Valdocco Oratory and had assumed that its director had been found guilty as charged for caching guns for an imminent revolutionary uprising against the government. La Perseveranza was the first to break the news that the priest in Valdocco was in cahoots with the revolutionaries and had conspired to arm them. Without verifying the facts in the case, the paper had rushed out its sensational edition, announcing that Don Bosco had been found out, and had been jailed in the underground lockup in the Palazzo Madama. 1 The following day, Father Giacomo Margotti, editor of the city's Catholic daily, L' Armonia [Harmony], hastened to assure the public that Don Bosco was not languishing in the poky. He ran a front-page declaration that it was all a trumped-up fabrication: Reports that Don Bosco has been arrested are false. We hasten to assure our readers that, ~ Qf now, this claim is not true. We say "as of now", because by the time you read this, he may very well be behind bars. Not that there is any basis for such 1F or an account of this episode see The Biographical Memoirs of Saint John Bosco, vol. 6, 330-331 (hereafter cited as 'English version'), John Baptist Lemoyne, ed. 80 Journal of Salesian Studies action. Everybody knows what kind of priest Don Bosco is. But today a priest is an outlaw for the simple reason that he is a priest; and everything and anything done to incriminate a priest is considered lawful and meets with little opposition. 2 When young Father John Bosco had arrived in the capital two decades earlier to begin his studies as a student priest at Turin's Ecclesiastical Institute (II Convitto), the thought of headlining the name of a priest as a "revolutionary" on the front page of a newspaper would have been unthinkable. The reason was simple enough. There was no public free press in Piedmont. And no public newspapers existed until the Constitution of Piedmont-Sardinia was promulgated in 1848. 3 The severity of the royal censorship allowed only the scientific and literary periodicals to survive, though there was much to read between the lines of those journals. Before the Statuto (Constitution) of 1848 opened the doors to a free press, a rigid censorship in the Capital was almost Orwellian. As Predari testified: In the press in those days [1843) it was strictly forbidden not only to speak of politics, but even to use the word. And so whenever I wanted to speak of political interests, I was obliged to change the words to "civil interests". In place of such words as "Italy", "native land", or "nation", I was forced to use the word "country." The word "constitution" was forbidden even when speaking of the governments of France and England, and the word was replaced by "laws" or "institutions". The terms "liberty", "liberal'', or "liberalism" were not to be used in any sense, and the word "revolution" was always changed into "upheaval", "anarchy", or "government by violence." 4 2 Lemoyne, Memorie Biografiche di S. Giovanni Bosco, vol. 6, 590. 3 The Constitution of Piedmont-Sardinia (often called statuto) was promulgated on March 4, 1848. This constitution was not granted by King Charles Albert to his people out of the goodness of his heart. It was conceded with reluctance and in an acute emergency. It would be retained as Italy's basic law until 1946. For an English translation of most of the articles of the statuto, the reader is referred to The Making of Italy, 1796-1870, edited by Denis Mack Smith, New York, 1968, 136- 139. 4 G.F.Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1815-1846, (1932). Vol. 1, 170. Hero and Villain 81 But as mid-century neared, the printed word was not to remain imprisoned for long. During those years of comparative inaction in the physical progress of the Risorgimento, Italian thought was profoundly influenced by the publication of several important works. Notable was Vincenzo Gioberti's Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani. So, a whole generation of political writers, to circumvent the royal censorship (and the royal displeasure) opted to publish for preference in Belgium, Switzerland, and other countries, although even this was technically illegal. Italy's first free political press began in Piedmont. The year before the freedom of the press became part of the Constitution of 1848, a modification of censorship permitted the freer expansion of newspapers. One of the first to appear in public was Count Camillo Cavour's own newspaper, significantly entitled, fl Risorgimento, which served as a springboard for his political ideas. 5 In the famous year known as the Quarantotto (Eighteen Forty-Eight) the enacunent of Piedmont's Constitution granted the freedom of the press, which was more or less maintained even after it had been swept away in the other states in Italy by the triumph of the counter-revolution of 1849. But Piedmont's freedom of the press was not absolute. 6 It was hedged in by restrictions. Article 28 read: "The press shall be free, but the law may suppress abuses of this freedom. Nevertheless, Bibles, catechisms, liturgical and prayer books shaII not be printed without the previous consent of the bishop." 5 The principal aim of fl Risorgimento was to advocate political change. Cavour argued that even the best laws could not work under an absolute government. For eighteen months he edited fl Risorgimento becoming its principal writer. Denis Mack Smith observed that this experience in journalism was invaluable to him. "His knowledge of the Italian language, though he had been practicing it, was still only moderate, and he had to use the dictionary a great deal, as well as relying on collaborators to revise what he wrote. But the effort of having to translate mentally from the French helped to give him a terse and clear style that avoided circumlocution and abstractions." Cavour, A Biography, New York, 1985, 33. Cavour's newspaper was more than just a journalistic Piedmontese endeavor. Its policy was definitely Italian, as it showed when it called on the king of Naples to grant a constitution to his people. It also boldly called for independence of the entire peninsula, and it attacked both Metternich's Italy and the France of Louis-Philippe. 6 Denis Mack Smith, the leading historian of modem Italy writing in English, notes that Cavour denounced any form of censorship on grounds that repression merely drove opposition underground where it was more difficult to deal with. However, when circumstances suited him, he did not hesitate to exercise a certain degree of interference with the press. But he drew the line when it was necessary to censor immoral or politically suspect books. That he did not believe in complete removal of censorship is evident in his practice of intercepting private letters, despite his claims to the contrary. D. M . Smith, op.cit, 121. 82 Journal of Salesian Studies Massimo D'Azeglio, Piedmont's first prime minister for some three and a half years before making way for Camillo Cavour, quickly put the censorship law to the test. He had earlier warned over-zealous journalists that "The press must either learn its responsibilities or risk severe censorship." His warning was soon put on trial in the case of Bianchi Giovini, a Lombard political refugee writing in Piedmont. An extreme republican, Giovini had taken to journalism, and in quick order succeeded in insulting a succession of important military and political figures with his venomous personal attacks. His first target was the Austrian minister in Turin, Baron Metzburg. His poison pen next attacked several Austrian generals and the Archduke Maximilian. For what was considered an unrestrained use of freedom of the press he was severely rebuked. But nothing further was done. Despite warnings from the Sardinian Ministry of the Interior, Giovini wrote a third scurrilous article. This time it was not the Austrians but the Pope himself who was the victim. And it was not Pius IX's politics that were attacked but his morals, for the Pope was accused of being the lover of a Countess Spaur. For Azeglio such an abusive attack was intolerable and Giovini was expelled from Piedmont. "If I am not afraid to send an archbishop to jail [Archbishop Louis Fransoni of Turin], then I am no more afraid to send a journalist to the devil." 7 The Giovini incident was symptomatic of an emerging profession in Piedmont that was experiencing growing pains. With all constraints now swept away, many journalists like irresponsible fools frequently rushed in where angels formerly feared to tread. The genie was now out of the bottle: It must not be forgotten that journalism, during the early stages of the Risorgimento, was not an established profession, but an activity that many people clumsily dabbled in. Everyone and anyone felt called to write for a newspaper or to found one.
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